In addition to this state of things, the heat was stifling, the atmosphere charged with electricity, and huge black clouds rolled over Paris, as though the sky were in mourning and wanted to take part in the funeral ceremony, by the rolling of its thunder. It is quite impossible to-day, at this distance of time, twenty-two years later, to give any idea of the degree of excitement to which the crowd had reached, when it received from its leaders the order to take the place assigned to each corps, corporation, society and nation, in the funeral procession. It was not a cortège; it was a federation round a funeral bier. At half-past eleven, under a driving rain, the state-carriage moved forward drawn by thirty young men. The corners of the pall were held by General La Fayette—who had a working man by his side wearing the July decoration, on whose arm the general leant from time to time when the paving became too slippery—by MM. Laffitte, Isay and Châtelain, of the Courrier français; by the Maréchal Clausel and by General Pelet; and, lastly, by M. Mauguin and a student from the École Polytechnique. Behind the bier walked M. de Laborde, questor to the Chamber, preceded by two ushers, accompanied by MM. Cabet and Laboissière, stewards of the cortège, and followed by a number of deputies and generals. The principal deputies were—
MM. le maréchal Gérard, Tardieu, Chevandier, Vatout, de Corcelles, Allier, Taillandier, de Las Cases fils, Nicod, Odilon Barrot, la Fayette (Georges), de Béranger, Larabit, de Cormenin, de Bryas, Degouve-Denuncques, Charles Comte, le général Subervie, le colonel Lamy, le Comte Lariboissière, Charles Dupin, Viennet, Sapey, Lherbette, Paturel, Bavoux, Baude, Marmier, Jouffroy, Duchaffaut, Pourrat, Pèdre-Lacaze, Bérard, François Arago, de Girardin, Gauthier d'Hauteserve, le général Tiburce Sébastiani, Garnier-Pagès, Leyraud, Cordier, Vigier.
The principal generals were—
MM. Mathieu Dumas, Emmanuel Rey, Lawoestine, Hulot, Berkem, Saldanha, Reminski, Seraski.
Of these three latter, the one was a Portuguese and the two others were Poles. With them were the maréchals de Camp Rewbell, Schmitz, Mayot and Sourd.
After the deputies and generals came the exiles of all countries, each group carrying its own national banner. Two battalions formed the escorting troop and marched in echelon on each side. Then—just as, in the midst of its quays, the flowing river overflows its banks after a storm—rolled by nearly six hundred artillerymen with loaded rifles and cartridges in their cartridge-boxes and pockets; then ten thousand of the National Guard without guns, but armed with sabres; then groups of working men intermingled with members of secret societies; then thirty, perhaps forty or fifty thousand citizens! All these moved past in the rain. The cortège turned at the Madeleine along the boulevard, crowded on both sides with women and men, forming a variegated carpet, which the citizens at their doors or windows, men, women and children, took part in as though on a tapestry pattern. Not one of the ordinary sounds men make at great gatherings issued from that crowd. Only, from time to time a signal was given and, with incredible cohesion, the cry was uttered by a hundred thousand voices whilst flags, banners, pennons, branches of laurel and of oak were waved—
"Honneur au général Lamarque!..."
Then all lips were silent; and the branches of oak and laurel, pennons, banners and flags expressed no more motion than as before a brief and hot squall during a tempest. All was as silent and nearly as still as death. But in the air there floated an invisible something, whispering low: "Misfortune!" All eyes were fastened on us, the artillerymen. They knew well that if anything burst forth it would be from among the ranks of the men in that severe uniform who marched side by side, with gloomy looks and clenched teeth, who, like impatient horses shaking their plumes, shook the red streamers on their shakos. I could the better judge of these arrangements, as, under instruction from the family, I did not walk in the ranks, but by the side of the artillery. From time to time, men of the people whom I did not know broke through the hedge, and shook me by the left hand—I held my sabre in my right—and said to me—
"The artillery need not be anxious, we are here!"